


The cat is mighty dignified (until the dog comes by)

by SquaresAreNotCircles



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Episode: s09e21 He Kama Na Ka Pueo (Offspring of an Owl), Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, Parallels, established eddie/mr. pickles i suppose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:08:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22123108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SquaresAreNotCircles/pseuds/SquaresAreNotCircles
Summary: Steve and Danny find them on the pillow in the corner of the dining area, where Eddie is on his side, ass half on the floor because the pillow is more cat-sized than lab-sized, and Pickles is nestled between Eddie’s front legs, essentially being spooned and looking very I-got-the-cream about it. Pickles’ head is tucked into the crook of Eddie’s neck and Eddie’s head slots perfectly on top of Mr. Pickles’, like a furry jigsaw puzzle.“They’re cuddling,” Steve points out, unnecessarily.Or: There is a love story unfolding under the McGarrett roof.
Relationships: Eddie the Dog (Hawaii Five-0 2010)/Mr. Pickles the Cat (Hawaii Five-0 2010), Steve McGarrett/Danny "Danno" Williams
Comments: 37
Kudos: 456





	The cat is mighty dignified (until the dog comes by)

**Author's Note:**

> Canon in recent seasons has been giving us SO MANY very, very transparent parallels and comparisons between Steve and Danny on the one hand and other pairs on the other hand – most notably, of course, Tani and Junior, but they are not the only ones – and it is both frustrating and wonderful. This is a fic that uses some other h50 characters Steve and Danny have been compared to extremely literally within the canon text, because I can’t resist a good parallel.
> 
> To fully understand this, 9.21 is fairly important and to a lesser degree 5.17 too, for laying out the groundwork for the season 9 episode. If you haven’t seen either of those, the tl;dr is that in 9.21 Steve ends up taking in a cat because Ricky Schiff, an ex-drug dealer, inherits it from a woman Steve and Danny knew too, but Ricky can’t take the cat at the time because he’s still living in a halfway house. Danny gets compared to a cat and Steve to a dog, and the episode ends on Steve and Danny sitting on Steve’s couch watching Eddie (dog) and Mr. Pickles (cat) interact for the first time, which we don’t see a lot of, but it’s implied that it doesn’t go super well. (But I mean, neither did Steve and Danny’s first meeting, and look where they are now, so essentially that’s just fuel on the parallel fire.)

“I think they’re in love,” Steve says, out of nowhere, on a Thursday.

Danny attempts not to be alarmed by the fact that Steve’s body might be driving the Camaro, but his mind is very clearly elsewhere. Danny manages pretty well – over the years he’s gotten a lot of practice at ignoring this particular anxiety. “Who are?”

“Eddie and Mr. Pickles,” Steve says, so Danny laughs.

Right until he realizes Steve is deadly serious.

*

Thursday evening, Steve drives them both from work to his house, because Danny refuses to believe any of the bullcrap Steve is peddling. A few weeks ago Eddie was trying to eat Mr. Pickles, and not in a good way. There’s no way they made a complete 180 from natural enemies to star-crossed lovers, no matter how much Steve swears it up and down and is backed up by Junior’s testimony. Junior is young, impressionable and eager to please; he’d still pick Steve’s side if Steve said the moon were made of cheese. Not a very reliable witness.

They arrive at the house and are warmly greeted by Eddie at the door. “I don’t see Pickles anywhere,” Danny points out. He considers this a mark in his favor until Steve nods at the first floor balcony. 

“Right up there.”

And Pickles _is_ right there, watching what’s happening below from between the wooden banisters with a sharp eye, like a jealous boyfriend. “That doesn’t mean anything,” Danny says, still full of misplaced certainty he knows better about these animals than the guy who lives with them seven days a week.

*

Eddie follows them into the kitchen and Pickles slinks through the door ten short seconds later. Steve is pulling ingredients for a stir fry from various places, so Danny is entirely free to watch as Pickles circles Eddie and Eddie takes a deep sniff of Pickles’ butt and wags his tail. He drops down on his belly to be more at a height and Pickles puts both front paws on Eddie’s shoulders and starts in on a thorough licking of Eddie’s ears. Eddie’s tail keeps thumping the floor rhythmically.

Steve pushes a cutting board, a knife and a handful of carrots Danny’s way over the counter. Danny grabs one of the carrots and bites into it. “Hey!” Steve says. 

Danny chews thoughtfully. “Alright, so maybe they’ve evolved to frenemies. I’m willing to concede that.”

“Frenemies.” Steve’s voice is dripping with doubt. “Yeah, I always lick my frenemies’ ears.” 

“Freak,” Danny shoots back. He gathers the carrots close and begins chopping them before Steve can soil them with his skepticism.

* 

By the time dinner is ready, the animals have left the kitchen. Steve and Danny find them on the pillow in the corner of the dining area, where Eddie is on his side, ass half on the floor because the pillow is more cat-sized than lab-sized, and Pickles is nestled between Eddie’s front legs, essentially being spooned and looking very I-got-the-cream about it. Pickles’ head is tucked into the crook of Eddie’s neck and Eddie’s head slots perfectly on top of Mr. Pickles’, like a furry jigsaw puzzle.

“They’re cuddling,” Steve points out, unnecessarily.

“Yes, I can see that.” Danny can, and it’s almost painfully sweet. “That doesn’t mean anything. We’ve cuddled. In this very room, in fact.”

Steve blinks. “Right.”

“Right,” Danny echoes, entirely unsure what kind of point he just made. He leaves the cat and the dog to their cuddling and takes his plate over to the couch, giving what he hopes is a convincing imitation of a man who knows what he’s doing.

*

The tv stays off. Before Steve has even taken his customary place next to Danny on the couch, Eddie materializes and drops down next to the tv set with a thump. With him comes Mr. Pickles, who sits himself down primly just on the edge of Eddie’s personal bubble and appears to be ignoring him. Danny is about to open his mouth to point to this as a sign that Steve is delusional if he sees any kind of an affair or courtship here, when Eddie rolls onto his back in Pickles’ direction, which puts him belly up, tail sweeping the floor, and with his head in the perfect position for Pickles to peer down at him critically. Pickles does so for a moment and then, with no warning, leans down to rub his cheek over Eddie’s face and purr in the most blatant flirting Danny has witnessed with his own eyes in a while, human or animal.

“You know, Pickles brought Eddie a mouse the other day,” Steve says, conversationally. Like it’s just a random anecdote that popped into his head and not the continuation of an ongoing argument that they both know he’s winning because the fairly irrefutable evidence is cuddling right in front of them. Again.

Danny balances his plate on the arm of the couch and pretends there’s nothing bothering him at all. “Bold choice. Much cheaper than a bouquet of flowers, that’s for sure. What did Eddie do with it?”

Steve needs to chew and swallow before he can answer. Talk of dead mice doesn’t seem to affect his appetite. “Pick it up and try to gift it back.”

“Cheap bastard,” Danny curses, but a little too affectionately, probably. “That sounds exactly like what you’d be like in a relationship.”

Steve grins. “Smooth Dog.”

“Keep telling yourself that, babe.” Danny ignores both the mildly surprised look Steve gives him and the sharp knowledge that he hasn’t thrown that endearment around as casually as he used to do in years. It’s high time to change the subject. “So why are you acting like this-” Danny twirls a hand at the two obliviously blissful animals. “-is a problem? Are you opposed to a love story unfolding under your roof?”

Steve’s eyebrows scrunch up. “No. It’s a problem because Ricky the ex-drug dealer called this morning to tell me he’s found a permanent place to stay that allows pets, and he’ll be by in about-” Steve looks at his watch. “-forty minutes, to pick up Mr. Pickles.”

“Oh.” Danny thinks about it and his heart cracks a little. If he were that cat, he wouldn’t want to leave that dog. “Well, yes. That is a problem.”

*

Ricky is fashionably late and as inappropriately jazzed to see them as always. Danny’s heart pounds a little faster than healthy when Ricky spots Mr. Pickles and scoops him up and ends up with a lovelorn dog’s head on his knee in addition to the cat in his lap, but Steve keeps his cool. He offers Ricky a cup of coffee, which Ricky accepts, and then they all sit around the coffee table and watch Ricky attempt to pet two animals at once.

Which is when Steve attacks. His opening gambit is more subtle than Danny would have given him credit for, though not so much so that it would fly right over Ricky’s head – Steve remarks Ricky’s got his hands full, Ricky says that he’s surprised Eddie and Pickles get along so well, and Steve replies that they’ve grown very close. Danny is hit with a strange wave of déjà vu linked to getting out of the hospital and Steve laughing because Danny wanted to hug him for the first time ever, which seems both like only yesterday and an actual age ago. Danny has a very hard time imagining a simple hug as a novelty now. 

Steve and Ricky keep talking, until Steve lays out the details of Pickles’ and Eddie’s relationship very earnestly and with a slight wrinkle to his brow that denotes the honest concern of an upstanding citizen with a heart for animals. “Oh man,” Ricky says, when he’s heard it all. He sounds bummed out. “I’m not gonna lie, that fills me with warmth but also makes me kind of sad. I’d been looking forward to having a furry companion, but, you know what?”

“What?” Danny asks. It’s very nearly the first word he’s contributed since Ricky entered the house.

“I just don’t think I could find it in me to break up an epic, species-defying love story like that.” Ricky slips from the lazy chair onto the floor, Pickles still in his lap. Eddie attempts to jump on, too, for which he’s a little oversized, but neither Pickles nor Ricky seem to mind. “You’d have to be really cruel to do that. And Eddie is a dude, right?”

Steve nods solemnly. “Yeah, he is.”

“Right on.” Ricky extracts the hand he was using to hold most of Eddie’s bulk at least sort of in his lap and uses it to throw up a totally nonsensical shaka sign. The move causes Eddie to slide off, which makes Pickles decide he’s had enough too and use Ricky’s shoulder as a stepping stone to get up on the chair, where he’s joined by Eddie. They curl up together behind Ricky, who’s still sitting on the floor, covered in both cat and dog hair, but seems pretty content about it. “So they’re basically fighting for gay rights too, you know. I’m not one of those homophobic bros. Couldn’t do it.” He pulls what, presumably, is supposed to be a determined face. “Commander, I know this is a lot to ask, but now that Pickles has found love in his golden years, you’re gonna have to keep him.”

“Keep the cat?” Steve says. He glances at Danny and then back at Ricky. “Well. I guess I could do that, if you really feel it would be best.”

“I do.” Ricky hits his own knee with a flat hand. “This is my final decision. You keep that cat, and you keep it close.”

“Right,” Steve says. He gives another weighty nod and one of his hands lands on Danny’s shoulder, the other one over his own heart. “I promise.”

*

Ricky says teary goodbyes to Pickles, who generously deigns to let him. When the door falls shut behind Ricky, Danny whirls on Steve. “You played him. You played him like a fiddle.”

“Like a guitar,” Steve says. 

“No,” Danny argues, poking a finger in Steve’s shoulder, “because you never do much more than lovingly pet that guitar I gave you. I mean you really, really effectively manipulated this poor man out of his rightful inheritance.”

Steve crosses his arms in front of his chest in a way that looks very self-satisfied. He doesn’t even make a token attempt at denying the accusation. “Come on, Danny, you can’t say this isn’t for the best. Don’t you think Mr. Pickles would much rather stay here?”

It’s not a very hard question. The moment Ricky let him go, Pickles retreated back to the lazy chair, where Eddie was still waiting for him loyally, keeping an eye out to see what Ricky was doing to Pickles. 

“Alright, I do. I’ll admit it.” Danny watches as Pickles stretches out a leg and Eddie barely even shifts in his sleep. To feel that comfortable next to another living being, that’s something many humans search for their whole lives. “They look like they’ve got a good thing going on.”

“I’m glad you agree,” Steve says, and smiles a little, like it really does mean something to him what Danny thinks of his pets. Then he collects the used coffee cups from the table and takes them to the kitchen, leaving Danny to stew in his thoughts. 

*

Steve, a guy who doesn’t seem to mind muddy paws or dead mice or animal hair everywhere but is very particular about doing the dishes, doesn’t just deposit the coffee cups in the kitchen like a normal lazy person, but stays to wash them. Danny sits down on the couch to listen to the sounds of Steve being a neat freak and meditate a bit on what the hell that feeling is, wagging its tail at the edge of his mind. He watches Pickles and Eddie and the slightly out of sync yet somehow harmonious up and down of their respective breathing as they doze. 

Steve comes back and sits down next to Danny in a comfortable silence. Their bond is one that doesn’t always need talking to be understood – it’s part of that having gotten very close thing they did a long time ago.

Not that Danny’s ever been known to waste an opportunity to throw some words around anyway. “Hey, remember when we said you were like a dog?”

“And you were like a cat? Yeah, I remember.”

Danny hums a vague assent and waits to see if Steve will pick up the ball that Danny is dangling in front of his nose.

Steve has been trained well, so he does. He stretches out and throws an arm over the back of the couch in both directions, which just so happens to also be behind Danny. “Do you think this is the universe telling us something?” 

Danny, without acknowledging it, leans back against Steve’s arm. It’s warm and firm and normal; this has happened a hundred times before. “Like what? An old dog and an old cat learning new, gayer tricks, and finding their happy end together in this house?”

“The thought had crossed my mind.”

Danny lets it cross his as well, and not just circle around the edges. It, too, is surprisingly normal. He supposes a lot of things would be, if he let himself think them. “Hmm. I don’t really like metaphors.”

“You prefer playing it straight?” Steve says it, pauses, and then pulls a complicated face, like he’s trying to solve a Rubik’s Cube and it just bit him. “No... heterosexuality intended.”

Danny gives a snort, just to reaffirm that their dynamic is still the same. “You’re an idiot.” A weight lifts regardless. He leans into Steve’s side and lets his hand stray until it lands on Steve’s knee, where it rests comfortably. Steve doesn’t shift at all and Danny, for the first time in his life, understands why cats feel a need to purr. “But I’m okay with where that second part’s headed.”

Steve grins at him, puppy-like if it weren’t for the grey at his temples and the intention behind it. “See? Sometimes cats and dogs _can_ get along.”

*

The next morning, it’s mostly Pickles and Eddie watching them instead of the other way around as the house tumbles through its morning routine. While Danny is cooking some eggs that Steve learned to like at some point over the last ten years, he feels a need to add, “But I’m still not licking your ears. Just so we’re clear on that.”

Steve has been observing the eggs in the pan with his chin on Danny’s shoulder and his arms looped around Danny’s waist. “That’s okay. I’ll lick yours if you want.”

“Compromise,” Danny says drily. “How very human of us.”

Of course, that’s when Steve goes for the really obvious joke and sticks his tongue in Danny’s ear, and Danny ends up having to call him an animal. Humanity is a work in progress.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Cuddle your pets for me if you have any (and they’re cuddly), and consider leaving a comment, if you want. 🐶🐱❤
> 
> I'm on Tumblr as [itwoodbeprefect](https://itwoodbeprefect.tumblr.com), or with my exclusively H50 sideblog as [five-wow](https://five-wow.tumblr.com).


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